by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BERLIN, Germany – A German court ruled that a former guard at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp is unfit to stand trial.

Hans Lipschis, 94, was determined to not be able to stand trial as he is suffering from dementia. Judges at the Ellwangen court in Germany ruled that Lipschis would not be able to understand the proceedings following the charges of being an accessory to murder during his time as a guard as Auschwitz.

“The court has refused to open the trial. The chamber is of the opinion that the 94-year-old is incapable of standing trial. It bases this judgment on its own personal impression and the opinion of a psychiatrist,” a court statement reported.

Lipschis was arrested last May. He had immigrated to the United States in 1956, but was deported in 1983 after he was accused of concealing his past as a Nazi officer. Lipschis avoided prosecution for over thirty years, as prosecutors were unable to link him to a specific crime or victim. However, the recent conviction of Ivan Demjanjuk, a death camp guard, provided a legal precedent for prosecution of Nazi war criminals without specific evidence. In 2011, a German court convicted Demjanjuk of playing a role in the murder of 28,000 Jews at a Nazi camp in Poland.

Lipschis worked as a Nazi guard at Auschwitz from 1941 to 1943, during which twelve prisoner convoys arrived at the extermination camp. Approximately 10,000 of those prisoners were determined unfit for work and executed in the gas chamber upon arrival.

The complaint against Lipschis alleged that he had been a member of the Waffen SS, a Nazi unit that specialized in “systematically exploiting and murdering people because of their race … and other characteristics.” The complaint further stated that Lipschis had been assigned to two different death camps during his tenure.

Lipschis admitted last year to the German newspaper Die Welt that he had been a cook at Auschwitz and stated that he later left the camp in order to fight on the Eastern Front, although he could not remember which he had been assigned to.

Roughly 1.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz. The deceased were mostly Jewish people, but also Roma, Poles and various other groups had been murdered as well.

For more information, please see:

ABC News – German Court Says Nazi Suspect Unfit For Trial – 28 February 2014

AP News – German Court Says Nazi Suspect Unfit For Trial – 28 February 2014

Chicago Tribune – Suspected Auschwitz Guard Found Unfit For Trial – 28 February 2014

Washington Post – German Court Says Nazi Suspect Unfit For Trial – 28 February 2014